By Tim Lynch | August 9th, 2024 |
In recent years, we have heard politicians, pundits, and political candidates alike speak of winning the hearts of voters or refer to their belief that our nation or the opposite political party has lost its way. You may have heard people talk about “what it means to be an American,” a dicey topic when there are so many different ideas of exactly what that means. In a country of over 300 million people, is it even still possible for us to have one heart, one set of defining characteristics? As time goes on and a nation changes, so, too, is it normal for its values to change. The question remains if America still values the principles upon which it was founded, or if our changing values as a nation represents the end of “the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government,” that had been “deeply [and] finally staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people,” as George Washington said in his first inaugural address as President.
Entire volumes can be – and have been – dedicated to exploring the historical context of the psyche and mindset of the American colonists who would eventually wage war against England for their independence and become the founders of our American nation. Conceding that a sentence or two is only enough to paint broad strokes, England’s American colonies, established largely to escape unfair treatment by the Crown, had been pressed into service in the French and Indian War between England and France in the middle of the 18th century. Following that war’s conclusion, the Crown was deeply in debt and began a campaign of simultaneously neglecting the needs of the colonies and reaching deeply into their wallets in the form of excessive taxation without representation. Anger over this treatment grew from an ember of resentment in the years immediately following the war’s end in 1763 to an intense flame only a decade later, when war would break out between England and our revolutionary ancestors.
While it seems almost like ancient history that Americans once risked the gallows of a tyrant king for the chance at freedom, self-determination, and the rule of law, the fiery determination of the American colonists to be free was burned into our country’s DNA in the aftermath of their victory over England. While the notion of self-government was by no means unanimous in the colonies (in fact, many colonists remained loyal to the Crown or did not pick a side), those who did support it knew that doing so was considered treason and that they risked not only their lives, but their wealth, their property, their standing and reputation, and the safety and security of their families. The final sentence of the Declaration of Independence says it best:
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
In that sentence alone, we learn everything we need to know about the young heart of our brand-new nation. Our forebears believed that freedom and self-determination were worth the sacrifice of blood and the risk of failure, because the blessings of liberty were the reward of success. They also understood, our founders, that at that moment in time, it had come down to a choice between action and possible failure or inaction and certain failure. They could no longer merely hope for freedom in their lifetime; they could only fight for it or die trying.
From the earliest years of our nation, there was nothing too difficult for us to undertake and no price to high for us to pay to preserve the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that formed the basis of our war for independence. The topic of how well or poorly that promise has been kept by the American experiment is one for another time, but these principles were the backbone and framework for a system of government and laws the likes of which the world had never seen, one in which power was carefully and deliberately constituted in the hands of the people at large, rather than a king or nobility class. In the 247 years since we published these principles for the world to see, this system has unlocked more human potential, freedom, and prosperity than any other system in human history.
Sometime in the last century, it seems a shift occurred, one in which the values of American patriotism and independence began to fade. Suddenly, during the Cold War, Americans began to believe that capitulation to our enemies was preferrable to the possibility that defending our values might come at the cost of convenience, comfort, and a short-term sense of security. Somewhere along the line, we stopped believing that freedom was worth the price to pay for it, and in the void left by the failure to defend our values, something like a cancer took root in the heart of our nation. A darkness lives in the shadow of that cancer and a feeling seems to be growing in the minds of our countrymen that there is little or no hope to be had for the future of our country. Many Americans may not even be able to define that feeling or may not be consciously aware of it, knowing only the feeling of dread every time they check the news or open their social media accounts or look at their bank statements.
Perhaps worst of all, an increasing number of Americans have become not only accepting of a larger, more intrusive, more tyrannical government, but actively wish for the government to enslave them because they can’t, don’t want to, or refuse to accept responsibility for doing the things that free people are required to do to obtain and preserve notions like freedom, self-determination, and the rule of law. What changed in the hearts of our kin and countrymen that our generation should fall so far from the Tree of Liberty? I am not sure I know the answer, but I believe as long as Americans remain comfortable allowing the State to tell us that they know how to run our lives better than we do as individuals, we will continue being subservient to a greater and increasingly more sinister tyranny.
What, if anything, can we do to restore the lionhearted faith our forebears placed in us to keep the brush fires of freedom burning? The first and easiest thing that any of us can do is to talk about freedom, write about it, think about what it meant to our founders and what it still means today. Thomas Paine penned The Crisis in December of 1776 and in the opening lines, he wrote: “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country.” Our nation is once again in crisis, and we can’t afford to stand on the sidelines or remain apathetic to danger of losing our freedom. Every flame emerges from a single spark. It starts with you and I and every single person who would rather die on their feet than live on their knees.
The Liberty Register 